Survivor's Debt
by ZutarianNaiad
Summary: "You saved my life." "I saved your bending." At the Pro Bending Championship, Amon tries to take away Tahno's bending. After that night, Tahno has to move forward whether he wants to or not. Episode 6 speculation turned AU, slight Tahorra
1. Chapter 1

Image was important to Tahno. Image was crucial. Image in many cases is more important than substance. Because of the importance of image, he was carrying flowers to the Avatar on Air Temple Island.

Or at least that's what he kept telling himself when dark thoughts came to mind and he felt the hackles on the back of his neck rising.

He'd wanted blue flowers, blue roses if possible, though he couldn't remember ever seeing blue roses at any of the florists he frequented. The pretty florist girl—Koko he thought her name was, wore a couple old fashioned geisha hair ornaments—had smiled apologetically as she showed him the bluest of their purple flowers, and apologized for the lack of blue flowers. Then a bushel of pale flowers among the roses caught his attention—not quite white, but a very light green. He inquired about them, and the price—second most expensive type of flower in the shop—was what decided it. One to carry with himself, three to be sent to Kuang's around five o'clock. He tipped well. Tahno always tipped a pretty face well.

The rose would keep well in the special pocket inside his jacket, but Tahno didn't feel like wasting time or interacting with the masses on the ferries. It took about ten minutes by taxi to get to the dockyard, and Tahno tossed the ten Yuan bill in the driver's window as he walked away, listening with a smile to the old man's grumbling. After all, image was important.

He walked directly off the end of the dock to his own ice floe, formed in the shape of a boat's bottom for easiest navigation. He relished the sound of angry sailors' shouts as he darted with a condescending wave in between the ships in the crowded dock. With his other hand he was careful to keep a single droplet of filthy dock water from touching his expensive suit.

He arrived on the west shore of the island, where the water was cleanest, and stepped onto the stone temple walkway without setting foot on the beach. Water he could at least control—he couldn't do a thing about a bunch of grit clinging to the hem of his 55% silk pants.

He grinned as he finally reached the top of the scenic staircase and saw the Avatar alone in the courtyard, lying on her back on a bench with a newspaper over her face.

A flash, all his muscles tensed, and his senses screamed at him _Don't think about the headlines_. He took a breath, shrugged his shoulders and limbered his limbs to swagger over to the Avatar.

"Avatar Korra," he said in a cordial drawl. "Enjoying the weather?"

He saw her muscles tense the instant before he spoke—good reflexes—and she was on her feet before he'd finished with her title. She landed in what looked like a halfway stance—firebender's arms, earthbender's legs, waterbender's flexible core.

"Tahno. What do you want?" She sounded wary, not suspicious. That was good.

Tahno shrugged again, shoving his hands in his pockets as he gave her an indirect view of his smile—girls loved the crooked smiled. "Come on, now—Championship's been called off, haven't you heard? Not like we're _enemies_ anymore."

Neither of them said the sentence that was hanging in the air: _With Amon on the loose, not like any of us are enemies anymore. _She stood up straight, as if to shake off the thought.

"Korra," he said, pulling out the green rose and walking towards her. "You saved my life." He offered it to her, just the right mix of honesty and pretty-boy veneer on his face.

"I saved your bending," she corrected immediately, turning away and grabbing the paper to leave.

"Hey, would you look at me? Bending _is_ my life," he said, gesturing with the rose as he followed her. "Come on. You need a night on the town, to relax."

Korra turned around, met his eyes, every muscle a ball of controlled tension. "Sorry to tell you this, but a night on the town is the opposite of relaxing."

Tahno gave her Smile No. 5 "That's because you haven't had a night on the town with _Tahno_."

"Not interested," she said, spinning around and marching off.

"Come on, Avatar. I can wait all night, and I think I heard something once about airbenders not turning away hungry guests and I can make it all night at least. But then, the reservations at Kuang's is for eight, so it'd probably be better to head out before those go to waste."

She continued to march, ignoring him with visible tautness to the muscles in her neck.

"I mean, it doesn't _have _ to be Kuang's," he continues. "Not everybody can get a last-minute reservation at Kuang's, so you could be making some poor lucky sap's night by wanting to go someplace else. How about that Water Tribe noodle dive I met you in?"

For about the first five minutes, it was cute that she was ignoring him with him trailing behind, talking about dinner, flirting just enough to be Tahno of the Wolfbats. And then it got annoying that he had to keep coming up with words as the most talkative Avatar in memory clammed up at him. And then it got infuriating that he'd come all this way to offer a girl a flower and a dinner date with Tahno of the Woldbats. And then for a few seconds he went back down the train of thought for the debt he owed her, and for a few seconds he was beginning to feel the symptoms of what the healers told him was called "shell shock" when he'd been on the healing cot, curled as tight as he could, unable to shut his eyes or keep from whimpering. (Thank the spirits no press or competition had been there.)

And right then, as a dark place was calling, his perfectly groomed hair went flying in five directions in four seconds, and there were shrill, excited bratlings hanging on Korra asking dozens of questions about him and her teammates and every form of emphasis possible laid on the word "like." He straightened his hair.

Dinner at the Air temple was definitely out.

He discerned one question the smaller of the bratlings asked, and responded with a shrug, waving the rose as he answered "Hey, she just saved my life the other night, and I figured I owed my new friend a dinner, no big deal."

"Yeah, but what about the _rose_?" she fired off with a faint lisp.

"Girls like roses," he said, kneeling down and handing it to the bratling. Twenty two yuans and change, down the drain. "I figured it might ease the way. Is it working?" Angle the face, cue crooked smile, and then feeling dirty for using the moves on a freaking _kid_.

She accepted the rose, and inspected it with what looked like real taste the texture, color, and smell of the flower before looking up to examine his face.

"Why are you wearing _eye makeup_? Isn't that for _ladies_?"

_All right you little brat, let's see how far I can throw your little airbending ass with the water from that planter…_

"All right!" Korra shouted to some question from the bigger of the bratlings. "I am going to dinner with him—_not a date_, and _not_ because I like him, or don't like him, or anything, but because people can be friends, and people who are friends can go out and do things like that and it doesn't mean that there's anything, it's just that people sometimes go out for some noodles when you've saved someone's life or their bending or whatever, okay?"

"_Ri-ight_…" the bigger one said, before airbending herself away, the other one quick to follow, leaving a few rose petals behind.

"Shall we?" Tahno asked, dramatically offering his arm. Instead, Korra lifted her fingers to her mouth, gave an ear-piercing whistle, and her monster bounded over with an eager _rauwarf._


	2. Chapter 2

He'd wanted to get the back room of the Water Tribe noodle shop like he always did, but Korra had been adamant about getting a normal booth. Maybe it's that she didn't realize what crossing her arms did to her very mature bust, or what her glare did to those bright blue eyes, but Tahno didn't argue.

"I don't mind being seen in public with you," he drawled with a grin and sauntered over to the central table. She stayed planted where she was, firm earthbender stance to her feet. Tahno made a sweeping motion to the booth with his arm and gave a condescending bow. "_My lady_?"

She grumbled as she marched over to the booth and plopped down into a slouch as he slid into the booth opposite.

"Get whatever you like. I can afford a dive like this," Tahno said. The old man who ran the shop floated over to take their orders.

"A bottle of yak-bear wine, a basket of hard rolls and dipping milk, some lard crisps, and the house special noodles with a plate of fish on the side. _And a glass of iced water_," Korra added, folding her hands in front of her.

"…Ginger-orange tea and the house special noodles," Tahno said, and the old man floated away. "What the hell is yak-bear wine?"

"It's fermented milk from a nursing yak-bear. They should have been delivering their cubs in the Northern Water Tribe about a month ago, and any real Water Tribe place knows to carry the stuff once it's been fermented for a full moon cycle," Korra said, and there was something happy in her face talking about home or her culture or whatever. "We have a saying in the Southern Water Tribe: 'You can always tell and outsider because he can't hold his milk.' But, you're a _waterbender_, so I'm _sure_ you can handle it."

"I'm pretty sure I can handle whatever you throw my way, Avatar," Tahno answered with a grin. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be right back."

"I thought it was bad manners to leave a lady alone when you're out with her?" Korra asked with equal parts sarcasm and feminine demureness.

"Manners?" Tahno scoffed over his shoulder, still grinning. Once he was out of the noodle shop, he stopped grinning. High-maintenance girl from a loser team putting up a fight before going out with him, costing him money, and then not even having the decency to fall for him? He looked forward to that night being over.

Outside the noodle shop, he walked over to a kiosk in an alley where a tall young man in an orange courier's jacket stood.

"I'm Tahno. Of the Wolf-Bats," Tahno said. He always preferred that to giving his last name. "I've got a bit of a dilemma, you see. There's a flowership in the East Side where I bought some flowers for the girl I'm with over in that noodle shop there. But, I arranged to have the flowers sent to Kuang's Cuisine, but she didn't want to go to Kuang's Cuisine, so we're here. Problem is, I need those flowers, and I can't remember just _when_ I told them to send the flowers over to Kuang's. So, here's your-up front fee, and good luck on getting me those flowers within the next forty-five minutes if you want the rest of your pay. We're just in a booth in there." Tahno clapped the courier on the shoulder as he slipped the ten yuan bill into the courier payment box, and spun around with his hands in his pockets to walk back to the noodle shop.

He heard the courier running off in the direction of the East Side, and Tahno chuckled that he hadn't given the courier any details to find which florist he'd visited. He heard the courier curse and run in the opposite direction toward Kuangs, and Tahno chuckled a little more that he'd left without giving the boy an authenticating signature, the color or type or number of flowers, or the shop's name to identify them.

"Damn sometimes it just feels good to be a bastard," he said to himself before reentering the noodle shop.

Korra was already at work when he got back to the table. There seemed to be more dishes on the table than he remembered her ordering.

"Hey. As soon as you left, I remembered that this place had some great salted lion-seal udon and swordfish-grouper steaks. Then the old man asked if I wanted them breaded or grilled and I said 'both' since you're so keen on showing your money and all," Korra said. She'd already eaten half of the lard crisps, half emptied the glass of water, taken at least one roll, and was de-boning her fish faster than anyone he'd ever seen before. "And the cook apologizes, but they're out of your fruity-flavored tea. I ordered you some green tea instead."

"Oh, you _shouldn't_ have," he replied with sweet sarcasm as he chanted the word _adapt_ over and over again in his head.

"Oh, I _know_," Korra replied.

_Why the hell am I doing this again? _Tahno asked himself in earnest as he carefully masked his face to swallow his hot leaf juice devoid of any decent flavor. Maybe she'd just been distracting him really well, because at that moment the memory of the chi-blockers, the bombs, and Amon's hand coming down on his face hit him blindside.

Her voice came in like a reverse-echo. "…_no…Tahno…__**Tahno…**_**Tahno!**"

"**What?**" he snapped, automatically bringing his leg up to kick the attacker off, forgetting the table until a fierce pain in his knee reminded him it existed and was _heavy_.

"Just shut up for a minute, okay?" she said, and was over on his side of the booth, the remainder of her iced water glowing around her hands. He was still tense as a coiled spring, but allowed her to turn his head to face her and place her glowing hands on either side of his face.

He'd been healed before, but usually only because he was _hurt_ first. (Once or twice had been completely recreational, but then he'd been pretty sure there were scratch marks all over his back anyway.) He'd never had a healer's hands on him like this, and… it was nice. He could at least feel his muscles starting to relax from their rigor as she worked.

She'd come over to his side of the booth, and had one foot on the floor, kneeling on the bench with her opposite leg as she leaned over him with her palms on his temples.

Tahno had good instincts, and his instincts said that when he heard someone entering the noodle shop, he should put a hand on Korra's waist.

When the people walked closer, in quick succession he heard a familiar voice say "Korra?" and then immediately "_Korra?_"

He had another decision then: move the hand higher or lower, which wasn't really a question at all. Lower if they were alone, higher for a couple of loser teammates catching their girl fraternizing with the enemy.

She had been pulling her hands away from his face, turning around to greet her teammates when she felt Tahno's hand moving and jerked violently out of the booth, and Tahno could have sworn he felt a gust as she did so.

She looked back and forth from the grinning Tahno to Bolin and Mako, and babbled things along the lines of "he wasn't," "I wasn't," and "it's not what it looks like" for a good twelve seconds before the spirits smiled on Tahno and a winded courier made his way in and unwrapped a bouquet of delicate green roses.

"Sir…" The courier said, brandishing the roses at Tahno. "That will be… ten yuans… plus expenses…" he gasped.

Tahno reached into his internal money pocket (which was getting lighter than he ever liked to allow it) and handed the boy the first bill he touched, a twenty-five yuan note.

"Keep the change, buy yourself something nice," he said. "And I don't know how familiar you are with the way these things work, but the flowers go to the lady. Keep at it, maybe someday you'll get it right."

The courier shoved the roses into Korra's hands and stomped out of the restaurant, Bolin following him at speed.

"Bolin, wait, no!" Korra yelled, dropping the flowers and running after him.

Tahno continued to grin, putting his arms behind his head and stretching out his legs on the bench of the booth. The look of anger on Mako's face was just _hilarious_ as he mumbled something about playing a game.

"What's the matter, Captain Loser? Little bro can't take a little competition?"

Mako turned his glare on Tahno, who lithely reached for his cup of tea to take a self-assured swig.

"Whatever Korra is or… does, there's no way I'm going to believe she was actually hear on a date with you, scumbag."

"Oh, scumbag? That's real cute coming the little street urchin," Tahno said, smiling against the taste of green tea in his mouth.

"What was she doing over you like that?" Mako asked.

Tahno shrugged. "Girl couldn't keep her hands off me. She _insisted_."

Mako seemed to be reading it as half lie and half truth, but he appeared to be having trouble telling which half was which. Then, there was a shift in his posture. "You almost didn't escape Amon that night. I was just as close to him as you were. It could've been me."

Maybe it was that shell-shock flashback he'd just had, but Tahno didn't feel any of his symptoms cropping up. "Well, are _you_ the captain and star player of a three-year championship bending team? No, no you're not one of the most famous and flawless benders in this city. It's obvious why Amon wants me—_everybody_ wants me." He let the sentence hang, giving Mako his slimiest grin.

"Hey, you've got—" Mako started, pointing to Tahno and stepping forward. The position was close enough to remind Tahno of Amon, bearing down on him with a hand ready to take away everything in his life that mattered to him. He managed not to scream, manages not to try to escape, but every nerve snapped into attention, he could smell the smoke and rock dust in the air, hear the screams of his teammates and the crowds. "—some water on your shirt. Was Korra healing you?"

Tahno couldn't make himself talk, he couldn't risk opening his mouth without the danger that he would scream.

"Hey, are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Tahno snapped, turning to face the table.

There was a moment when Tahno sat there with his fingers tented in front of his face and Mako stood with his arms crossed, and then Korra and Bolin walked back in, looking at least like friends.

"I don't know what he's been telling you, but like I was telling Bolin, Tahno just showed up on Air Temple Island and wouldn't leave me alone until I agreed to get dinner with him, _as friends_, since the championship is over and we can all be _friends_ now," Korra said.

"Right, and since I already paid for dinner, why don't we go ahead and finish Avatar while we let your teammates get their own dinner?"

"Wait, what? No," Korra said, surprise on her face. "No way, I ordered way too much for just me to eat. You guys sit in with us—dinner's on Tahno."

_Maybe_, Tahno wondered to himself, _somewhere, in some life, there is a version of her who was not born to annoy the hell out of me._

But he gave her his charming grin as he motioned to the seat next to him. "Well, since you walked in with me, care to make room for your friends on that side of the table?"

"Nope," both of the brothers said at once, Mako sliding into the seat next to Tahno and Bolin joining Korra

* * *

A/N: So, turns out I'll have to go into three chapters to finish. There will be an independent oneshot for the Borra conversation outside the noodle shop. Coming the next chapter, something remotely resembling Tahorra. And I need to hurry, because 11AM tomorrow has the ability to shatter my headcanon forever. crying gif/crying gif


	3. Chapter 3

It had been difficult for Tahno to get the Avatar's teammates to agree to let him take her home.

For one thing, he had had to cover up his rage at having to _ask_ to take a girl home. Tahno got what he wanted, and if he wanted to take a girl home (_whose_ home depended on the situation), he would stand up, give the girl the "come hither" over his shoulder, and she'd take his arm as they walked off into the night, maybe getting a grainy picture in a gossip rag the next day. In those pictures, he was always identifiable because of his hair, and he always made sure the girl was on his opposite side—no need for her to be recognized if she didn't want to.

For another, he had to cover up his rage at her teammates for effectively cockblocking what might have still been a salvageable evening.

For another, he had to play the flirtatious pretty boy to the Avatar for the sake of his own image and try to be honest with just how little he wanted to bang that brash, inconvenient, ungrateful…

…Beautiful, courageous, damn sexy woman who'd saved his life.

And that was another thing. The Avatar had started getting attractive. Not in the "offer the moderately attractive female opponent 'private lessons'" way of noticing attractiveness, but rather… she seemed to be drawing him in. Tahno considered himself an expert on the subject of female beauty among other feminine merits, and Tahno was increasingly aware of her masculine speech patterns, the fact that she walked like a man, and how little she was doing to be alluring to the men around her. (Which is not to say that she was being sisterly—there was nothing sisterly about her behavior there, even if it wasn't flirtatious.)

But… she had a nice laugh. It wasn't the simpering giggle he was used to hearing from the floozies he toted around. When her teammates made jokes or Pabu stole her food, she acted a bit like a kid, and that lowered the tension of the entire table.

For whatever reason, that level of… honesty… just made him really want to see how she was in bed. It made perfect sense to him, as he rationalized that as the only female at the table, it only made sense that he'd be thinking about that.

So, after playing off the brunt of his annoyances from earlier in the evening to the front of "will not touch the Avatar," and the empty dishes were cleared away, the brothers acquiesced. They both had to stand to let he and Korra out of the booth, and the brothers watched suspiciously as he and Korra left the restaurant together.

"Well, I guess this is goodnight," Korra said quickly, raising her fingers to call her beast.

"Whoa, hold on," Tahno said, raising a hand. "I got permission to walk you home. Never had to do that before, and I'm not about to let it go to waste."

Korra struggled for a moment before stepping towards him and said "All right."

They walked for just a bit before he offered his elbow. The look she gave wasn't quite a glare, and he said "I've got an image to look after, remember?" It surprised him a little when she took his arm, and like most innocent girls she wasn't aware of her curves, and the dim city lamps allowed him to smile freely.

"Hey, Tahno?" she said after a while of walking in the general direction of the docks district.

"Yes?"

"Are you doing all right? I mean, after I first saw Amon—"

"Hey, Avatar? We're not having this conversation all right?" He was learning to shut a door in his mind. He remembered something one of the healers said about dealing with his trauma in the coming weeks, but considering the flashbacks and near-freakouts he had been dealing with since the Championship, it seemed much more convenient to just seal it all away and ignore that any of it had ever happened.

"…I thought I could just ignore it too. I couldn't."

And for a while they walked in silence, Tahno imagining all of the details to the door in his mind behind which what they were not talking about was stored. Made of ebony, top cost, charged to his father's name with ludicrous interest on the account, with the best Fire Nation imported lacquer available coating it, but he was undecided as to what kind of hinges, what kind of doorknob, what kind of ornamentation to put on it…

"Tahno? Can I ask another question?" she said, and Tahno realized she was actively trying to be nice. For a moment he berated himself for taking time for mental architecture when a very attractive woman was on his arm. She stopped walking. "I… This is going to sound really stupid…"

"That's good, because I prefer my women stupid. Never have to put much effort into them that way," Tahno said. It was an old joke, usually helped him to gauge what kind of woman he was with. A giggle, a look of derision, or a question could tell him all he needed to know about a woman.

"I'm kind of being serious—I need to ask you a favor," she said, distancing herself from Tahno without letting go of his arm.

He didn't have to look up to know the moon was a waxing 3/4, and because of its light on her face he could see the serious but nervous look.

_Damn—maybe I am getting laid tonight_.

"I need to ask you never to fall for me." He stared at her face, waiting for the punch line. "Look it's fine, you've got your image, your pretty-boy-who-shows-his-cash-and-flirts-with-the-girls thing going on, and you make your jokes and your flirts and everything else. But never mean it with me, ever, okay?"

And in that moment, it became impossible not to.

"All right," Tahno promised, pulling her close to him again. "But, you've got to understand one little thing, Avatar: you give me something _not_ to do, and then I've got to go and do the opposite. Quite a place you've put me in, having to fall in love with you, and having to never mean it. Downright cruel one might say."

Then she shoved him away and began to march off towards the dock district on her own.

"Don't get mugged!" he shouted after her. "I'm not sure my poor heart could stand the breaking!"

* * *

A/N: It's funny because Tahno is being a bastard and he doesn't even know it. [Cue "Bolin in the Deep"]

And my headcanon is that Tahno really does appreciate women. He knows enough about them to know the difference between a fairweather floozy and a keeper, which is why he keeps so many fairweather floozies around—no trouble when things are done, and no one is hurt.


	4. Chapter 4

Tahno woke up in a cold sweat. That had been happening a lot recently.

He stared out blearily into the shade of his room and instantly thought there was an intruder because his door was open. He ripped off the sweat-soaked sheets and landed in a crouch on the side of his bed, took one breath, and put out his arm to call some water from one of the urns placed in the four corners of his room.

Nothing happened.

Hesat there on the balls of his feet, pulling at the water with whatever wasn't already devoted to his frenzied mind's efforts to remember what was going on.

Flashes came to him. Fireworks around the arena, tossing off a wolfbat mask… Going toe to toe with the Avatar, getting revenge… Explosions, Amon…

…Amon…

He uttered a strangled, animal noise and threw himself to his feet, hurtling out the open door to his bedroom into the well-lit bathroom opposite and lost his stomach in the toilet. The fear and taste of vomit in his mouth caused him to heave again and again, and there was nothing left in him when he collapsed against the cold porcelain of the bath tub in a freezing sweat.

Amon. Amon had taken everything.

He raised his head and brought it down against the bathtub, once, twice, three times, and continuing until he lost count and the dull, hard throbbing made him forget how cold his skin was. His hair was lank and wet over his face, and when he raised his hand to to scrape his hair off his face he felt ice.

_Ice… might as well be ice… icy, cold, and dead…_

His thought was interrupted when a broken sheet of ice fell over his right eye, thinner than a dragonfly's wing, and evaporated immediately.

_Ice?_

He bolted to his feet and to the mirror, and watched the icy shell of sweat on his face fall and melt as he looked in the mirror, elation feeling just like fear in his chest.

He turned on the tap, watched the water flow, and raised his trembling hand to siphon off a stream. The water resisted, but came in a weak stream he brought to his face to clean the salt from his eyelids and cheeks.

He stared at his eyes, which looked so much smaller without the eyeliner and with his pupils so constricted, and then lowered himself onto the floor to remember what he could.

His door. His door… For the first time since childhood, and not even in childhood when he'd demanded to sleep in the dark, he'd wanted light as he slept so the doors to his room and the bathroom were left open, the bathroom light left on. No intruder, this time.

His bending…

Avatar Korra. When Amon was on him, chi-blockers holding his teammates, she'd struck them all off the stage, hitting so hard he couldn't tell if it was earthbending or waterbending getting him. Then fear had taken over. They hit the water. Chi-blockers everywhere, fear took over, and he'd pulled his teammates under the surface and made an air pocket for them in the deepest part of the trench. He didn't know how long they were like that, his arms mindlessly moving to maintain their shelter as exhaustion and fear shut his mind down.

Later, after he'd blacked out—had some metalbenders dropped into their sanctuary and taken them away? Or were those chi-blockers and another nightmare he'd escaped by no merit of his own?

Either way, he was among the cots, surrounded by healers, the image of Amon's thumb on his forehead seared into his brain. Healers talking about "shell shock" and the impact of "psychological trauma" and dozens of terms he didn't care about because _these people didn't seem to understand that Amon had had his hand on Tahno to take away his bending._ And then the healer, a dark woman with black hair, blue eyes, and a square face, telling him that if he didn't handle this, the trauma in his mind could block his own chi and made it difficult for him to bend.

And Korra's words from the other night came into his mind, and Tahno leaned back against the pedestal of the sink.

"_Are you doing all right? …I mean, after I first saw Amon… I thought I could just ignore it too... I couldn't."_

"Well…" he muttered "I guess I'll have to take her up on that offer…"

And then he for some reason remembered their first meeting, faces inches apart, that ironclad dare in her eyes as he offered her some _private lessons_…

"…And maybe she'll take me up on mine."

He turned on the shower tap as hot as he could take it, stripped and stepped in to get rid of the last of the salt and fear clinging to his skin.

* * *

A/N: So, it bears saying that I had never intended for this to go on. I hadn't even intended for a third chapter, but Chapter 2 just ran too long to finish thing there. This wasn't meant to be a story, it was meant to be speculation. …But then Episode 6 happened, and for whatever reason, people wanted more. I do intend to continue this as a character piece and to speak to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as best I can, but please understand that I do prefer the choices that were made regarding the series proper.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Figured I should update this, since this is the one people actually read. Also, please check my profile for information regarding a fan fiction-based tumblr which relies on audience involvement in order to succeed, if you have the time.

Tahno headed out to Air Temple Island a second time, this time without flowers. He was absolutely certain about two things: One, if your bending is blocked by your own chi from within, then you need some spiritual mojo to get it back going again. Two, the gurus of spiritual mojo were found on Air Temple Island.

He kicked a rock in his path as he walked. The extent of his spiritual knowledge was that people said they existed, he knew his bending was stronger at night and in the full moon, and people said the moon was a spirit and also the spirit of Princess Yue who was killed in the Hundred Years War. It didn't make much sense to him, but spiritual mojo had never been part of his bending before. He didn't necessarily believe there _weren't_ spirits, but in general that seemed a lot more like it was the Avatar's kind of problem, not his.

"Well, now it's definitely my problem…" he said to himself as he hailed a taxi to take him to the yachting docks.

Some people recognized and called out to him as he made his way down the main pathway, though this time of winter there weren't many people out on the water. He ignored them and went to the outmost dock, which was beautifully vacant of witnesses. As he walked down the dock, he held his hand out to the water to begin work his ice vessel—he couldn't rely on himself to make it in a heartbeat like before. It wanted to slip out from under him as he landed, but he kept his footing and forced the vessel forward. Whatever was going on inside his head, he was still Tahno of the Wolfbats.

The water was choppy, and he was glad to arrive at the island. Even in the ebbing chill of the morning, Air Temple Island looked like what he'd expect from a brochure advertising **Beautiful Spiritual Getaway!** Scenic Walks! Calming Noise of the Ocean! Flying Lemurs Picking Their Noses!

He wandered around aimlessly for about a quarter of an hour before he heard voices, and then at the level above where he was the screechy little munchkin who'd gotten the rose he brought Korra.

"You're really getting it, Korra! Really, really, really getting it! I bet you'll be airbending in no time! And then we can go flying on gliders and have adventures and play chase the lemur and race each other and we can go up on Daddy's bison and make cloud shapes—"

Tahno climbed to the top of the stairs and saw the two little munchkins whipped up a gust to send this giant plateau of gates thing spinning while Korra stretched.

_Damn_. _Guess this isn't just a passing thing_, he thought as the lithe muscles of her back and arms moved through the waterbending stretches he's learned young. He resisted the urge to lick his lips.

After limbering up her body, she bounced on her feet a bit and went towards the spinning gates.

"Korra," he called out just as she was getting in.

"Wha—" she got out before a gate took her by surprise and whacked her into the fray. It was always entertaining to Tahno to see a girl lose her footing because of him, but rarely was it as fun as hearing Korra's "Oomph—OW!—Sunova—AH!—Whoop—HA—OUCH—Yah—_Aaahh"_ as the gates expelled her and she landed on her rear at another point on the circular dais of the gates.

Tahno walked over to where she sprawled on her back and grinned down at her while he waited for her to get up.

"Tahno… what do you want…" she groaned from the ground, rubbing her eyes like a child who didn't want to look at the chores that needed to be done.

"Maybe he came to give you more roses and take you away to a romantic dinner and confess his love so you can run away into the sunset and have magical adventures with dragons and spirits and sparkles and rainbows and ice cream—" the smaller munchkin prattled on while the bigger one helped Korra to her feet.

"Actually," Tahno said, putting his hand on the top of her head to shut her up, "I'm here to see the airbending master."

"Tenzin?" Why do you wanna see him?" Korra asked, her head cocked to the side.

_Damn it, this is not happening now. I don't have time right now to chase the Avatar. And I don't chase women—they chase me, and I select._ "Just need to talk to him about some things."

The Avatar still looked skeptical. "Tenzin is in the city right now, some council business." The munchkins had been gossiping about something and giggled. Korra glared at them.

"Well, I can just hang around till he gets back," Tahno said. Airbender hospitality was a known fact in the city.

"Sure," the bigger munchkin said, leaning closer to Korra.

"We heard on the radio that you were a big meanie cheater pants and the White Lotus guards said you paid off the ref and that's why the announcer man said that you were cheating, but that was before he said that he was peeing his pants, but he said that when you and Korra were fighting just each other she beat you really bad and that was super quick so does that mean you're not good at all when you're not cheating?"

Tahno, instead of insulting the child of his would-be spirit guide, kept a smile on his face as he envisioned freezing the child in a block of ice, tying chains around it, and sending it in a freezer ship to the North Pole with orders to bury in the tundra.

"You _could_ show us a little bending," the taller one said. "Since you're going to be around and we can't really continue with training Korra until Dad gets back."

"Maybe later kiddo," Tahno said.

"What's that? Backing down from a fight, Tahno?" Korra said, and the back of Tahno's neck began to itch.

"Is it that you can't fight her in a fair fight unless you've got a bribed judge watching? Are you scared to fight Korra again because you know she'll beat you?" the small one began before Tahno bent down to look her in the eyes.

"You know what? You talk a lot you little…" He couldn't end the sentence with "brat," not if he wanted the old man's help.

"C'mon, Ikki, give him a break," Korra said, then turned toward Tahno with a grin. "Besides, I'm not sure he _could_ win in a fair fight."

"Oh, you want to go toe to toe with me, Uh-vatar?" Tahno said, stepping towards her to tower over her just the way he had in the noodle shop. "Cause I'm ready when you are, water against water." _Damn it damn it damn it damn it damn it stop talking damn woman damn kids damn it._

"Whenever you're ready, Pretty Boy," the Avatar said, and her smile was infectious. Not infectious like chickendillo pox, where the first person has something and more people just get it. Infectious like the case of whooping cough that had laid him up in bed for two months when he was twelve, where the first person has something small and invisible and may not even know she was carrying it, and then passed it to the second person so that the small invisible thing took hold in your chest and spread and spread and grew until your body just couldn't deny what was happening.

_Damn it_, Tahno thought to himself. _Just damn it._

"Come on, we can go to the beach!" the taller one said, and her little sister Ikki took off after her. Korra looked at Tahno and then jerked her head for him to follow. Somehow, in between their interactions, she might just have begun to consider them friends.

_That would make things easier_, Tahno thought as he followed.


	6. Chapter 6

"All right, no rules match," Korra said, taking her place at the other side of the sparring circle.

"Whoa whoa whoa, Uh-vatar," Tahno said, languidly raising his hands. "Not so sure I'm up for a _no rules_ match with someone who's got two elements on me."

"Fine—water against water, that's it. Ice is fair game, headshots are fair game—_if_ you think you can risk it, Pretty Boy," Korra said, bringing her fists up.

"Oh, I'm not sure you would risk it," Tahno said. He didn't drop into a stance, didn't wait for a "go" command. He started with a shrug, like he was limbering up, and struck from behind from the cistern of water behind her.

Korra dodged with a horizontal spin, catching the water with one foot and redirecting it upwards. Tahno chose in an instant—took the water she missed to put an ice patch under her landing foot.

Korra's movement became more violent in the split. The water above turned into sharp, lethal icicles and aimed for Tahno. He turned them to water and endured the hard, cold, choppy deluge when he was hit from behind by what felt like a platapus bear tackle.

It took him to his knees, and he could feel it icing over, and he kicked out one leg, liquefying the layer closest to his skin, slowing him to spin on his knees, melting the ice and spreading it over the surface of the playing field.

Korra was waiting, and another deluge from above.

Tahno didn't fight it, but split it, turned it around and returned Korra's ice spiked to her straight on.

She ran at him over the ice, through the center of the missile barrage and his feet slipped out from under him, and she was sliding at him with her hand outstretched.

All Tahno saw was Amon coming at him, Ming and Shaozu at his sides being held by chi blockers, the smell of dust and smoke and electricity in the air, that too-clear smell like then a fuze burned out. That mask, that hand coming to his face to take away his bending, his life, everything that mattered to him…

Tahno didn't hear himself scream _Amon_, didn't feel himself drop to the ground, had no grasp of Korra standing over him, shouting his name, glowing blue water covering her hands as she reached for him.

Altogether, the fight lasted a furious minute and forty seconds.

Tahno never actually lost consciousness, but his mind shut down as a way of coping. He didn't scream after that first Amon, and to his credit he didn't even whimper. It was as though he had just stepped out for a moment, and came back twenty or so minutes later with the Avatar sitting on the balls of her feet, arms crossed defensively under her bust, watching him in concern. To her side a pot of water with a washcloth and two glasses of foggy juice.

"Tahno?" she asked, and her voice was oddly sweet.

"Guess we'll have to schedule a rematch sometime," Tahno said. "The way we were going at it, we could sell tickets. After all, my viewing public needs _something_ now that the championship is over."

The look of concern on her face didn't go away.

"So, when's Tenzin getting here? Since he's the whole reason I'm here , excusing your presence of course, _Uh-vatar_."

Korra stood up, still looking just as serious

"He's waiting in the gazebo. Ikki and Jinora should have finished telling him what's up by now," she said. She picked up the glasses of juiced and set them on the bench Tahno was leaning against, and slid the pot of water underneath it with her foot.

Tahno followed her as she walked away.

* * *

A/N: Hurrah, actually updating the one that people actually read…

I have a favor to ask of you guys. I've gotten a _lot_ of emails about people subscribing to this work. That's great, I'm glad you enjoy it and all that. But the review count is nil. If you are subscribed to this work, it would be fantastic if you could just leave a review. Honestly, even if all it says is "This is a review." The thing is, a lot of people base what they read merely on the review count. I'm not asking for a multi-paragraph or multi-page treatise on all your theories, speculations, fangsming, etc. Just a review, if you have a moment.

(And the reason I don't answer most reviews is that I don't want to run the risk of sounding like a bitch if/when I disagree on speculation etc. Review, and I promise to at least thank you.)


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